Improvement in the manufacture of paper for collars



UNITED S ATES PATENT OFFICE.

STEPHEN M. ALLEN, OF WOBURN, M ASSAOHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT lN THE MANUFACTURE-0F PAPER FOR COLLARS, dc.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 35,019, dated March 31, 1863.

To all whom it may concern:

Be .it known that I, STEPHEN M. ALLEN, of Woburn, county of Middlesex, State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful improvements in the manufacture of paper adapted particularly to the production therefrom of collars, bosoms, wristbands, &c.; and I hereby declare that the following is a. full, clear, and exact description of the same.

Collars and. wristbands heretofore in use were made from linen or cotton rags or directly from cotton-4'. 6., from the refuse stock of cotton-millsand the process the material underwent during its conversion into pulp so destroyed the organic structure of the fiber that the fibrilsconstitutin g the same lost their individual integrity and simply formed an extremely reduced semi-fermented and-bleached pasty mass without any consistency other than that imparted to the mass by the liberal use of sizing. When such collars, &c., are worn next to the body the moisture exhaled from the skin will soon reconvert the paper into a rotten paste. This is the main objection to collars, wristbands, and other similar articles heretofore made of paper; but there are other important objections which it is my object to remedy. Thus, starch and other sizing used in connection with paper does not with sufiicient force adhere to and penetrate the interstices of the fibers if in the making of the pulp the fibers were exposed to destructive fermentation. On the other hand, the boiling of the pulp, usually resorted to when raw fiber of cotton, flax, hemp, 8.20., is used, is quite as objectionable, since the boiling has a tendency to coagulate the albumen in the fibrils, which renders them unfit to be bleached by the ordinary bleaching solutions unless they be of such strength as to destroy not only the albumen, but also the fiber. 7

Having thus stated the principal objections and inconveniences attendingto the old method of preparing the paper-stock used in the manufacture of paper collars, culi's, &c., I shall now proceed to describe the manner-in which I have succeeded in remedying the same, and whereby I am enabled to produce a paper eminently adapted to the peculiar manufacture it 'is designed for, and which I denominate the stranded.

I take any long-line fibrous substance-such as flax, hemp, jute, or other like substanceseither in the straw, and rottedor unrotted, or in the tow, i. 0., when the woody envelope is duly separated from it. If it be used in straw, I crush the envelope by passing the straw through a series of crushing-rollers, or I'separate the fiber from the straw by brakes of suitable construction and operation. The filaments of flax, hemp, 820., thusfreed from, the straw are steeped in lukewarm water and allowed to remain therein until that portion of the albumen which is nearest the outer surface of the fiber becomes sufficiently soft and soluble to be washed out by single or repeated rinsings. The filaments are thus steeped sue cessively in water of increased temperature until 'the boiling-pointis reached, when an alkaline solution may be added to complete the elimination ofalbuminoussubstancecontained in the fiber. After each warm-water bath the filaments ought to be washed" or rinsed in warm or cold water. I have obtained satisfactory results with both, although I deem washing with cold water preferable. If there be an excess of alkali, the fibrous matter may be passedthrough a. neutralizing acidulous solution. At this stage of the operation I allow the fiber to dry in the open air or in a chamber heated by hot air or in an oven for the purpose constructed. When dry the fiber is quite free from albumen and in proper condition to resolve itself into its natural elements by the application of mechanical means, whereby the fiber is drawn down longitudinally, dividing it into short filaments whose ends are The fibres so reduced are then put into a pulp-mill, where they are comminuted or thoroughly intermingled and reduced to the requisite pasty consistency for the manufacture therefrom of paper adapted to the manufacture of collars, wristbands, 8:0. The mass may be bleached either in its pulpy state or when yet an unreduced fiber.

Having thus fully described my. invention and the manner in which the same is or may be carried into effect, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The production of paper adapted to the manufacture of collars, wristbands, and other similar articles of wear from'fiax, hemp, jute,

or other long-stapled fibrous substance by to this specification before twosubscribing vittreating the said fiber in warm water atsuenesses.

cessively-increased temperature, as described, STEPHEN M ALL-EN in combination with the reduction thereof by meellllanical means, substantially as herein set Witnesses: fort In testimony whereof Ihave signed my name ATKINS A. CLARK, Jr, WM. D. SEAVER. 

